


The Cursed Dragon

by afteriwake



Series: Now And For All Time [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: BAMF Molly, BAMF Molly Hooper, Caretaker Molly Hooper, Charles Augustus Magnussen is a Royal Advisor, Curse Breaking, Discovery, Dragon Sebastian Moran, Evil Plans, F/M, Fairy Tale Curses, Fairy Tale Style, Happy Ending, Inspired by Novel, Molly Discovers Treachery, Molly Hooper is a Princess, Molly is a Virgin Sacrifice, POV Molly Hooper, Plans, Promises, Sebastian Moran is Cursed, Theft, Virgin Sacrifice, Witch Curses
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-03
Updated: 2019-04-03
Packaged: 2020-01-04 07:04:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18338600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: On the eve of Princess Molly's twenty-fifth birthday, a dragon comes to lay waste to her kingdom. Eventually, a lottery is set up to give the dragon a virgin sacrifice, but when Molly stumbles onto a wicked scheme by the royal advisor Magnussen, she finds herself picked as the next sacrifice and kept from telling the truth to her mother. Prepared to fight the dragon on her own if need be, she is taken to a remote part of her kingdom by the dragon...who is not quite what he seems.





	The Cursed Dragon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dreamin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dreamin/gifts).



> So I owe **Dreamin** a Sebolly fic for something she did for me when I was unable to post to Tumblr (stupid post limit), and I had an idea in my head to adapt a novel by Mercedes Lackey, One Good Knight into fanfic for her. The first chapter skips a lot of the set-up of Lackey's novel, but the rest will be more of a faithful adaptation of it.

Once, a time long ago, in a kingdom by the sea, there lived a royal family. The mother and father were quite happy together, and they were blessed with a young daughter named Margaret, who went by the affectionate nickname Molly for short. She was a curious child, always wanting to learn and always wanting to explore, but her father was worried some ill would befall her, so he assigned a guard to watch her. The guard loved her as much as they loved their own children, and she loved them as aunts and uncles, and as she grew, they let her explore to the limits of her boundaries and no further.

Her favourite place to go was the terraced hill behind the palace, where there was always a watch set to see those coming into the kingdom by sea. They were a small kingdom but prosperous, and there were always those wanting to seek trade with her kingdom. Not all of the travelers had good motives, though, and it was up to the watch to decide what kind of visitors they were to have and if they should be allowed to shore. Those that were not allowed to shore were sunk and any survivors captured, and their riches were lost to the bottom of the sea until the kingdom could get to them. If the nearby folk in the city got to them first, they were taxed a share of what they found and were allowed to keep the rest.

The soldiers of the watch loved her as they loved their own children as well, and she would often picnic at the top of the terrace next to the spyglass mounted there to observe the sea. She never bothered the soldier on duty, aside from to offer a morsel or two of food, but was happy to sit quietly and observe. She liked to observe quite a bit, and her observational skills were sharp because of this tendency.

One day, the king died, rather suddenly but not unexpectedly, as he had been battling illness for some time. The entire kingdom went into mourning and her mother, the Queen, stepped in to rule as she was deemed too young, being only six and ten at the time. Her father’s advisor, the court seer known as Magnussen, stepped in to help deal with matters in this trying time for Her Majesty.

Molly didn’t like the man. He seemed strange to her, with mannerisms that made her feel he wasn’t all he seemed. She did not voice her opinions as they were mostly based on gut instinct, and her parents had both been people who trusted facts over instinct, and as she had no facts to prove he was up to no good she could do or say nothing. But she observed, simply waiting.

The years passed, and as she aged there were rumours that soon she would be made to wed, but she wanted to know how to rule first. Her mother had seemed loathe to allow her to take part in court life, wanting to keep her as tightly watched as she had been when she was a girl scrambling up the terraced hill, dirt and grass staining her simple clothing, but eventually she relented. Molly observed that this made Magnussen unhappy, but she still had no proof he was doing anything untoward regarding her mother, herself or the crown as a whole.

Her mother set her the duty to take notes when she held court with those in the kingdom and to research in the royal archives so that she would be able to make her decisions. Molly did this job diligently and with great thoroughness, and in time her duties were expanded to research information of the travelers who came to shore to trade. She was quite pleased with the duties set to her, and as the years went on, she helped to make the kingdom even more prosperous.

And yet she still did not marry, even as she approached the age of five and twenty. By now there should be an heir to the throne, she realized, beyond herself. She should be wed, but it did not help that those among the royal court who showed interest were not to her taste, nor were those who came from afar. She was not quite sure what type of man she would choose to wed, she only knew it was none of the available men in the kingdom. But she reasoned her mother wanted her to try and marry for love before marrying for duty, and for that, she was thankful.

And so things continued thus until the day before her birthday, marking her at the age of five and twenty when the dragon first appeared. And that was when her whole life changed.


End file.
